Heat
by agrajagthetesty
Summary: Only I can match him, touch him, fight him, destroy him. Despite everything I have done to seal myself off from such thoughts, my heart believes that he: his ideals, his power, his passion – and yes, his body – it all belongs to me. L/Light


_WARNING: L/Light_

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Heat**

Sometimes I wonder whether it is love that I feel for him. Is it love that makes me want to leap upon him and strip everything away from him – clothes, skin, pride – tear it all away until he stands before me naked and exposed? Is it love that keeps me from even sporadic sleep, sitting in the dark wondering whether romantic fantasies ought to involve pain and power and struggle and blood? Is it love that makes me unable to look at him for hours at a time, for fear of being caught in the bonds of his terribly seductive eyes?

It does not seem typical that the thought of him makes me shake all over, rouses my heart and fills my chest with lead; that just thinking about his face makes my palms sweat and my pulse accelerate with what feels like anger, or fear. It does not seem usual that my fingers ache to touch him; long for the expanse of his skin stretched out beneath them, laid bare for them to tease, to torment. It does not seem right that his lips look to me as if I ought never to leave them alone; as if their contours were asking for the touch of my fingertips and the taste of my mouth. And it does not seem right for me to call this feeling love. Nobody, least of all myself, ever suspected that I was capable of such a thing. And yet, if I look at the situation objectively, the conclusion is inescapable.

Love implies a reliance, a dependence – and sure enough, I can hardly go ten minutes without thinking about him, how much I want him and how much I resent him for it. Love implies a mutual bond and understanding – and it is true that there are moments where I can hear his thoughts as clearly as if they were my own, and I see it written on his face that he can do the same to me. Love implies a deep emotional connection, the most alien concept of all – but I cannot conceive of any other reason for my physical response to his presence. If I allow myself to relax, strip down my own barriers and look into my core, I can see that despite all rationality I consider him mine. Only I can match him, touch him, fight him, destroy him. Despite everything I have done to seal myself off from such thoughts, my heart believes that he: his ideals, his power, his passion – and yes, his body – it all belongs to me.

In light of this, it seems unlikely even to me that my current strategy for solving this case is entirely appropriate. I have analysed the situation over and over, and each time I have concluded that there is no option but to keep him beside me constantly. Yet, for the first time, I find it difficult to trust my own judgement. Nobody understands better than I that I am capable of manipulating and embroidering the truth to suit my own ends. Is it possible that I am doing so unconsciously: lying to my own mind, as it were? Is the irrational part of myself, the part that contains this unprecedented fixation, playing tricks on the rest of my mind? I can see no way to determine whether this is the case, and in this position I have no choice but to remain resolute. I must not allow my defences to slip. I must not show any signs of hesitancy or doubt. I must not allow him to see the effect his presence has on me. It would be like handing him the knife with which to cut my throat.

And yet, the mere idea of giving in to my desires is more exciting than anything else I can think of: more thrilling than caffeine, than a sugar rush, than the sting of victory.

It is now, at night, when the urge becomes most difficult to resist. Chained like this, we have no option but to share a bed- assuming, that is, that my own thoughts have not become traitors- and in the pale grey darkness his skin is a landscape of shadow beside me. His appearance is far less refined than usual: his clothes of loose soft cotton, his shirt crumpled and open to the breastbone, his hair falling back and showing his forehead, his temples. This alone would be enough to captivate me. But it is the subtleties of the situation which I find so difficult to ignore – his warmth; the shapes his body creates beneath the sloped surfaces of the sheets; the sound of his breath; the knowledge that we are completely alone, that he is weakened, slowed by sleep, that I could show him pain or give him pleasure, soothe him or strangle him, and nobody would ever know.

His eyes open, catlike, pale discs dimly reflecting the soft glow from the window, and without moving, without taking the trouble to pretend not to have been looking at him, I watch his gaze travel upwards to fix on my face. The look he gives me is bleary and faraway, the slow dull vagueness of the barely conscious, with a dash of bemusement and a hint of concern. It is perfectly appropriate and perfectly irresistible, and I wonder how far I can trust that look, which aspects of it are genuine, whether the whole thing is just another highly polished and beautiful lie.

His hand flutters free from under the sheets and I feel it settle on my forearm. His skin is always so much hotter than mine, the warmth of his fingers seeping out into the cool surface of my clothing and spreading through my flesh. The fine hairs at the nape of my neck stand on end at the contrast in temperature: it is like his touch is melting my skin, and at the same time I can feel a peculiar heat in my chest, like a hot drink warming me from within.

"What is it?" he whispers, the lateness of the hour making his voice a little hoarse – although it still possesses that certain smoothness, that sweetness that makes me want to close my eyes and just listen to him speak. All words, regardless of their truthfulness, turn to gold on his lips.

I do not reply. I dare not risk it.

He is shifting his body, raising himself on one elbow, his hand sliding up my arm and onto my shoulder, and I know that it would not take very much more of this for my willpower to begin to waver under the pressure. It is entirely possible that he knows this too and is deliberately testing me, although if that is the case then he is crueller than I had thought. Then again, I have always known that he is willing to take advantage of the weaknesses of others. Is this so very different? There can be little doubt that on some level he is aware of my longings for him. When he catches me looking at him, it is no longer a question that I see in his eyes. It is understanding. Of late, he has begun to watch me back, deliberately meeting and holding my gaze so that we will stare at each other for minutes or more. He has begun, whenever I am forcing myself to concentrate on other things, to make subtle shifts and gestures in the corner of my vision that draw my eyes irresistibly to rest on him – and then, once he is certain that he has my attention, he will smile in a way that makes my chest feel heavy and I will be trapped once more.

He has even begun, much like he is doing now, to touch me.

I am not accustomed to physical contact, and the mere sensation of his palm, hot and solid on my shoulder, is sending my thoughts in all directions. It is bad enough that I share a bed with him, that I am forced to feel all the secondary evidence of his body beside me, but this is still more powerful and can only get worse; that is, more intense. He appears to have interpreted my silence as some form of encouragement – well-meaning ignorance, or a calculated ploy? – as he pulls himself fully upright and shifts along the mattress, closer to where I am sitting, so that I can feel the heat of his flesh all down one side of my body. I almost think that I can hear a crackling as of electricity when we make contact, even through the dual layer of clothing. The mere thought is enough to make me want to berate myself for a fool.

"Are you alright?" he says, his face – his skin, his eyes, and oh, his _lips _– close enough for me to feel his breath on the side of my jaw.

I risk a glance at him, and my pulse quickens as my eyes confirm how very close he is to me. "Perfectly," I say.

This is dangerous. All I can think about is that I am balancing on a knife's edge; that there is a mass murderer in my bed beside me, touching me, sharing my air; that he is more beautiful than anything I have ever before experienced; that I am so close, so terrifyingly close to giving in to everything I want to do to him.

He huffs out a small sigh – it blows a lock of my hair forwards to tickle against my cheek, making my skin bristle – and moves away from me once more, falling backwards onto the mattress and looking up at me in resigned bemusement. "You really don't want to sleep with me, do you?" he remarks.

I feel my throat clench, and I wonder whether he understands the connotations of his words, whether he is aware that he has landed on the bed in a manner that causes his shirt to pull further open at the neck and expose his collarbones. "It is never easy for me to fall asleep – particularly when I am next to my prime suspect," I say dryly, hoping that this will be the end of it.

But he is looking at me, the corners of his mouth quirking as if amused, his eyes performing that trick they have of being both repellent and captivating to my gaze, and I cannot fight the suspicion that creeps up into my chest: the fear, however irrational, that he knows, he has seen my thoughts and even now he is waiting for the right moment to strike.

"Are you sure it's because I'm a suspect?" he says.

I whip my head around to face him, and I feel the bones in my neck crack in protest at the sudden movement. He is stretched out with one arm extended above his head, reclining rather than simply lying, and even through the hair and lashes that shadow his eyes I can see that he is smirking at me, an upwards curl of his lower lip that leaves me in no doubt. He knows. He has seen my thoughts – read them in my voice or my movements or whatever other method he has that allows him to peel back the layers of myself until he can see the raw insides of my mind – and he has risen to the challenge, as we always must, the predictable pair of us. The look on his face, although only subtly different to how it was when he first awoke, has become unexpectedly and shamelessly seductive, and the myriad details in the way his body is arranged on the bed leave me in no doubt that he is consciously striving for me to notice them.

And despite my best efforts, notice them I do – things I have never noticed before, things like the way his chest lifts as he inhales and the creases of his shirt chase each other over his contours in response; things like the way even the dimmest of light causes his hair and eyes to glow caramel-coloured in the darkness; things like the shape of his ear, his throat, his fingernails.

His hand lands on my forearm once more, but this time his fingers slip under my sleeve and move along my skin, a searing touch that ironically makes me shiver. "Did you think I wouldn't notice you watching me?" he whispers.

There is no purpose in answering the question – I know the answer and so does he – and so I determine to ignore it in favour of discouraging his advances, of deflecting that sultry gaze that scorches my face. "I do not want to have sex with you."

He merely smiles, his hand sliding higher, coaxing my skin into pre-emptive response. "Liar."

"Yes," I say, "but I do not lie all the time and I am not lying about this."

He gently lifts his other hand, takes hold of the front of my shirt, eases me around to face him. "What's the problem?" he murmurs. "Are you afraid I might kill you?"

His fingers go from inside my sleeve to the crest of my cheekbone, far too intimate, far too much – but they are intoxicating, delicious even as they scald me, and although the thought makes my stomach turn over I want to lean into their touch, to submit to and demand more of these dread-tinged caresses.

"Somewhat."

His hands are pulling at my hips, and although I do not recall deciding to move my body is shifting, twisting, one knee unbending, so that I am hovering over him watching my own hands settle softly on his chest.

"Sex and then death, is that the concern?"

I do not know when his fingers slide around my cheekbone and into my hair, but I can feel them toying gently with the tangled strands, winding tight coils into already knotted locks, scratching smooth nails along my scalp.

"There are certain species of spiders that –"

He looks at me, fist tight in my hair, the skin of his torso gleaming grey as my fingers, moving independently from my mind in the absence of any instructions, unfasten buttons and push cloth aside as if the clothing is tiresome to them.

"Do I look like a spider to you?" he says.

There is a rhythmic pounding in my ears, deafening and overwhelming, and I realise that it is my heartbeat. It is the final warning, the last effort of my brain to hold my actions in check, but I am no longer able to call the body I inhabit my own. It is following his orders now, he has struck and I am caught, and I feel like an outsider, watching myself in captivated horror as I lean in close to him, dip my head to the base of his throat, and breathe in all the infinite particles that make up his scent. "The similarities," I say, and touch my tongue to his skin, a possessive gesture that screams of irony, "are undeniable."

And even while he turns his face towards me and I at last feel his red-hot mouth make contact with mine, while I feel and hear my own breath escaping from my lungs and leaving me shaking and straining, I am convinced that he is smirking his victory.

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_Author's notes: Much as I love other pairings, I never really get over L and Light. Something about them is so perfect for me. With that in mind, have some sexy mindfuckery. :D_


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